The existence of masu cups in the distant past of 1300 years before today in the Nara period has been confirmed.
Despite the fact that they have originally been used for measuring volume, their size varied from region to region, there was no uniform size.
The one who unified the size of masu cups was Oda Nobunaga. At the time a 10 go (Extra-large masu) masu has been popular in Kyoto and he has ordered to the the shogunate's seal on every such cup thereby making it the official masu cup,
thus the Kyomasu has been born. The forthcoming Hideyoshi administration has also inherited this custom.
In 1669 the Edo Bakufu has continued this standardization process based on the Kyomasu by creating the so-called New Kyomasu, which has became the base of the unified masu sizes that we are using today.
CAUTION: If read all this, you'll be longing for your own masu cup!
- The scent of a masu
- Common sizes of masu boxes
- Masu sake is the best drink in Japan
- Sake cup made of hinoki wood
- Kagami biraki ceremony
- Setsubun(Bean-Throwing Festival) and masu
- Taru sake
- Japanese masu
- Masu order
- Japanese wedding
- Japanese celebrations
- Japanese holidays
- Izakaya
- In the old days masu has been purposedly misused
- Other than drinking sake from it, there are many uses of masu
- How to drink masu sake correctly?
- Remnants of masu around us
- The difference between Kyomasu and Extra-large masu
- What's the relationship between masu, sake and salt?
At Masu selling company, our goal is to introduce the beautiful tradition of using masu cups to many-many people. We hope that many of you will get so familiar with masu cups that even your Japanese acquaintances will be surprised. By doing that, our ultimate goal is to make the world a more convenient and a little happier!
The Masu selling company is shipping masu cups to customers both in Japan and worldwide. Recently we are getting more and more orders from not just individuals, but organizations, Japanese restaurants, international companies making a business opening ceremony Japanese style by opening a barrel of sake and drinking its contents from masu cups. An excellent way of drinking Japanese sake is to do it from a freshly made masu cup. That may be the reason why Japanese people cherish a rather intimate connection with these small wooden boxes from the old times. We would like to share the best parts of traditional Japanese culture with as much people around the globe as possible.